Somehow have an average of E on my Folkestone review, thanks to everyone who rated it. I will one d...
Somehow have an average of E on my Folkestone review, thanks to everyone who rated it. I will one day get round to re-writing the somewhat helpful reviews I did when I first joined Ciao.. Wish I had more time.
Member since:25.01.2006
Reviews:13
Members who trust:4
This printer was released in 2002, yet I still find it can easily compete with most of the combination printers on the market today.
The Printer is fairly large as are most combination printers, I gave it a quick measure and it is slightly under 15 inches Deep, 18 Inches Wide and 10 Inches High (although it is a flatbed scanner so under a desk probably isnt a good place as it will restrict access to the scanner). ---------------------------
Installing:
It is extremely easy to install, It connects via USB and the manual is quick and easy to follow. The installation is quick and the printer can be set up and ready to use in under 5 minutes after taking it out of the box. Ink is quick and easy to replace.
It is in several tones of grey, is quite smart and easily cleaned. It has an led menu on the front of the machine so it can easily be used as a stand alone copier. It does not need to be connected to a computer
to use the copy function. ----------------------------
Copying / Scanning:
It is extremely easy to use, It has 2 copy buttons, one for colour and one for black and white, so there is no need to change any settings to make copies as a stand alone copier. The only problem I have with the copier is that I often copy printed documents that have been stamped with an ink stamp, occasionaly if the stamp is particularly faded it will not print it, unless I turn the darkness up (which is extremely easy). The scanner/copier aquires images at 600x1200 dpi.
Also on the printer is a led display, it's small but it's easy to read the information it displays, here you can change many settings. There is also an instant scan option, which will open your default software or the software that comes bundled with the printer and it will send the scanned image to your computer. ---------------------------------------
Printing:
I'll start with the only possible negtive I can think of with this product, When printing fast black and white pages it is pretty noisy and rushes the paper through fairly violently, but on colour and photos it is very quiet.
It prints black and white pages at 14ppm but I find the average letter I print, which doesnt cover the whole page, will print at around 20ppm. It quotes a speed of 13ppm for colour printing which is spot on for letters with colour or small amounts of colour on a printed page, but pages with a lot of colour will probably be closer to 3 or 4ppm. For photos I cannot find a quoted speed but I find it prints a standard size picture at around 1ppm.
It has an optimised printing output of 5760dpi for "true photo quality", I'm not sure what it means by optimised but I have found it very good for priniting photos, although I do not print photos regularly. With some of the cheaper non-Epson cartridges I have bought, it seems to have a problem getting skin tone well on photos, but this is no fault on the printer, but due to the cheap ink I use. It also has BORDERLESS PRINTING, which means no more white bits to cut off on your photos.
It will take most envelopes, as well as A4 - A5 - A6 and B5 paper, Probably some other paper as well, but I have not used any others. It will also warn you when ink is running low and give you an idea of how many pages you can print with the ink that is left. --------------------------------------------
Running Costs:
As I dont do much photo printing, I am happy with the cheapest of cartridges, Unlike some printers it is extremely easy to get non-branded ink cartridges for Epson printers. I buy these at £4 for 1 colour and 1 Black. If you do a lot of photo priniting you will either need to buy epson cartridges which can often be in the region of £30 each, or trial and error with the cheaper non-epson cartridges, I use Ink cartridges made by titanium when I do actually do photo printing and these are fine for the job at £9 for 1 colour and 1 black.
As with all printers if something goes drastically wrong it is often cheaper to buy a new printer than getting it repaired. However it has a maintenance facility and it is easy to re-align the heads, clear blockages etc.. --------------------------------------
Compatibility:
It will work with any windows platform after Windows 98 and also works with Mac.
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Overview:
I cannot recall having a paper-jam recently, maybe 4 since I bought the product several years ago.
When all is said and done this is a great practical printer, It is fairly hard to find now as it is not the most recent model, but I have recently seen it selling new at £65, I bought this new from a small local supllier several years ago at £99.99. It often sells on Ebay for around the £40 mark includng postage (reconditioned or 2nd hand).
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Stuff from the Box / Manual:
Epson Stylus CX3200 Manufacturer Warranty 1 year warranty Dimensions (WxDxH) 47.5 cm x 38.9 cm x 23.5 cm Weight 7.2 kg Copier Type: Digital Ink-jet ( colour ) Max Copying Speed: 10 ppm (mono) / 9 ppm (colour) Max Printing Speed: 14 ppm (mono) / 13.9 ppm (colour) Max Printing Resolution: 5760 x 720 dpi (colour) Scanning : 600 x 1200 dpi PC Connection: USB Display : 2 lines x 16 characters Standard Memory : 5.7 MB Max Document Enlargement: 400% Max Document Reduction: 25%
Maximum Copies 99 Supported Media Type Transparencies, envelopes, plain paper, cards, iron-on transfers
Max Copy Size : 216 x 297 mm Min Copy Weight : 64 g/m2 Max Copy Weight: 190 g/m2 Standard Media Capacity :100 sheets
Document & Media Handling Details: Input tray - 100 sheets - 216 x 297 mm weight: 64 g/m2 - 190 g/m2
Good review, you can't go wrong with Epson, cheap to buy and easy to maintain and last for ages! What more could one want from a printer? (Don't say you want it to make tea and coffee lol) Mil x